So, some Dutch psychologists have released the results of a study that indicates living in urban areas raises the risk of suffering from bulimia, but not anorexia.
They found women in cities were five times more likely to have the binge-and-purge illness than those who live in villages and hamlets but that there was no difference in anorexia rates.
Bulimia is also more secretive than anorexia because people are ashamed of their behavior. They try to avoid telling other people about it," said Van Son.
"The reason for the association is speculative," she said.
It seems rather obvious to me why city life might result in an higher incidence of bulimia. There exists a huge difference in the "ethos" of what is beautiful and normative in the city as compared to rural areas. As Hannibal Lector said in Silence of the Lambs, "Our nature is to covet. And what do we learn to covet? We covet what we see everyday." Big cities are more likely to be inundated not only by enormous billboards with skinny models, storefronts with fashionable size 0 clothes, but many thin beautiful people walking around. Its impossible *not* to feel fat and ugly in a glamorous place like New York, LA, or Chicago, where appearances are considered quite important. Might these factors provide a source of outward societal pressure to look a certain way? Certainly those pressures are to be taken seriously, as they probably account for why so many more women suffer from this illness than men do.
I'm sure it isn't the *only* reason for the difference in urban vs. rural, but I'm surprised the authors didn't at least bring it up.
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Also, most people don't realize that there are two types of anorexia - restricting type, and binge-purge type. On the surface, the latter very closely resembles bulimia. Because of this, it might appear that someone has both illness concurrently, but instead it's a case of type 2 anorexia.
I think you are over-analyzing. In the country, undernourished people are easier for the wolfpacks to catch and eat, so they tend to die from animal attacks before they make it to the stage where they would be said to be dying from bulimia.
Hmm, and here I thought the wolfpacks went for the slower, er...over-nourished people.....
Perhaps you are thinking of the overnourished city people, who indeed do not have much muscle under their layers of fat. In the country (I was raised in one of the 'I' states), it's a whole different ball game. Overnourished people may be slow, but they can still put up quite a fight once caught, from the exercise they get lifting tractors and such.
Umm...and an "obvious" question is: if bulimia is 5 times higher in cities because of an urban "ethos", then why is there no difference in anorexia rates? The only way to reconcile your opinion with the data that they present (as I've understood from your summary; I haven't the time to read the original paper right now) is to suggest that this same "ethos" of normative beauty has nothing to do with anorexia. Is that what you would claim?
I was wondering the same thing, Winawer.
Just pulling a potential reason out of the air here: Couldn't it also be related to the higher concentration of restaurants that cities have? You're much more likely to find people eating out on a regular basis in a city, and more likely to be eating out with co-workers or at work related functions. Perhaps the binge and purge aspect comes more into play because people feel pressure to stay thin, but also to take part in the social scene or to eat with co-workers?
I have no idea, and I'm sure that there are many other explanations, but that just popped into my head.
Roy, I think that higher prevalance of resturants/social activities in cities does have something to do with it. Interesting point.
Anorexia is a very different illness. Speaking in broad terms (dangerous, I know, but for the sake of argument...) bulimia tends to be associated with a global problem with impulse control, whereas anorexia is a problem of excessive control. That is one way to look at it. If they are fundamentally different disorders, they can respond differently to environmental cues, even if some of the same environmental cues serve as risk factors for both disorders.
Complicating the picture, though, is the occurrence of persons with both disorders. Things like that make it hard to generalize.